


We're Gonna Frame You For Murder!

by pinkmagnolias



Category: John Mulaney - Fandom
Genre: Crack, Dark Crack, Gen, Murder, despite all the previous tags this fic is completely ridiculous, exactly one (1) swear, john's girlfriend has the only braincell in this entire story, please don't take it seriously, probably, several mentions of murder, where in the world did AO3 get "American (US) Actor RPF" to categorize this under
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:08:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25698583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkmagnolias/pseuds/pinkmagnolias
Summary: What if Delta Airlines actually followed through with their threat?
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	We're Gonna Frame You For Murder!

**Author's Note:**

> if you haven't seen John Mulaney's Delta Airlines bit (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHwKmZnc7l4) then this will most likely not make much sense, so you should go watch it first

John honestly wasn’t sure how they’d gotten a dead body, but he didn’t think he wanted to know. _Was_ it murder? An accident? Old age? Had someone tried to ship another’s remains, and Delta Airlines had deprived some family of their loved one’s body? Whatever the case, he didn’t feel particularly inclined to ask.  
  


He had just wanted to go home. Through a frankly ridiculous series of events, he’d found himself in front of the help desk—one of the most oxymoronic titles he’d come across in his lifetime—and asked if he could go home on an airplane. It wasn’t an unfair question, all things considered, and he’d even added a please.

“No!” The attendant had laughed the word at him. “In fact, we’re gonna frame you for _murder_. And you’re gonna go to jail for _30 years_!”

  
He had sounded entirely happy to ruin a random man’s life, and John could only cry dramatically, “Why are you doing this to me?!”

  
“Because we’re Delta Airlines, and life is a fucking nightmare,” the man had replied, in a singsong tone, still sounding pleased. And while the latter part was certainly true, he didn’t have to go and _say_ it.

John wasn’t sure what he’d done to deserve this. Had he done something during his blackout drunk years he was only paying for now? Was it because he’d pranked everyone in the diner that one time?

  
Whatever it was, about half an hour after the exchange he was 

  1. still not home, nor flying his way there,
  2. sitting in front of what looked like a body bag containing a dead body, and
  3. handcuffed to the chair he was sitting in.



He was pleased about none of these outcomes, especially because his phone had just died, and even if he had a charger on him (which he didn’t, because they’d confiscated his bag), there was no outlet near enough to his chair to be of use.

He’d been staring at the wall for a few minutes, mostly zoned out, when the door opened and a police officer entered, accompanied by the attendant who’d told him about the framing and another man who was probably his manager or something.

  
“This is the dude?” The policeman asked doubtfully, eyeing John, which, rude, John could _totally_ murder somebody if he wanted to. His skinny, lanky frame and slightly boyish face only meant he looked less likely.

  
“Yes, sir.” The attendant and the manager both nodded. “We’ve got camera evidence, and when we ran his prints” (which no? They didn’t?? How had they gotten his prints???) “they matched the ones on the gun.”

The policeman still looked highly doubtful, but he unlocked the handcuffs from the chair and flipped them so that they were on both his hands.

  
“You have the right to remain silent,” the officer recited, leading John out of the room and through the airport. “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney, and to have an attorney present during any questioning." 

  
As they passed the attendant and manager, John heard what was obviously a high five for a successful murder framing. But the policeman didn’t comment, and so neither did he. He led John outside and shoved him into a police car before turning back and talking to the other two, who’d followed them outside, for another couple minutes. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but when the policeman walked around the side of the car to get in, both the attendant and the man shot him identical evil grins. He wasn’t sure how they were doing it; the windows were tinted so that the passengers couldn’t be made out, but they were both looking directly at him.

One silent car ride to the police station later, and he was once again cuffed to a chair. This time, he’d been given paperwork to fill out with an inky hand as they matched his prints to the ones on the gun.

  
He’d made through the first sheet of three when a policewoman came in, looking slightly confused. He sat up a bit straighter, curious as to whether they’d actually managed to get his prints on the gun or if they’d just straight up lied. He wasn’t sure how they’d have gotten his prints, or plant them on a gun, but he wouldn’t fully put it past Delta Airlines.

  
The woman stood there silently, frowning slightly as she looked down at him, until he prompted her, "Well?”

Her frowned deepened, and she replied, “We scanned the prints. Your prints were similar enough, but not the same.” John gave a sigh of relief, but midway through his sigh the policewoman continued. “But we have the footage here of you killing them, and it’s clearly _your_ face.”

  
“Can I see the footage?” He asked, and she nodded. After a minute where she had to get the key to the handcuffs before transferring him over to another chair in a different room, he sat in front of a computer monitor. He watched, impressed they’d managed to come up with something like this in under half an hour.

  
On screen was clearly himself, wielding a gun as a man stood a few paces in front of him, back facing the camera, holding up his hands and probably scared. Screen-John shot the man, then turned and stared directly into the camera, giving it a good look at his face for at least 30 seconds before someone burst in from behind him—airport security, by the looks of it—and Screen-John took off running.

It seemed pretty realistic, up until Screen-John stared at the camera for so long. That was when you could tell his face had been Photoshopped onto someone else. Still, impressive that they’d managed to make it that good in under half an hour.

  
Instead of pointing out the obvious Photoshop, he asked, “So what’re you going to do with me?”

  
The policewoman was silent for a few minutes, long enough John wasn’t sure she was going to answer him, until finally she said, “We’re still discussing that.”

“What do I do while I wait?” As it turned out, what he did while he waited was be escorted back to the previous room, to sit zoned out for a while, until finally someone came back in and explained that they would take his statement, and depending on his story they might take the case to court. So John explained how he’d been trying to go home, but the plane had been delayed nine hours and then suddenly took off while he was in the bathroom, and then he’d tried to use his meal voucher, and finally he’d gone to the help desk and been told he was going to be framed for murder.

  
“Out of curiosity, _would_ I be going to jail for 30 years?” John asked as he finished.

  
“It depends,” said Tyler. He hadn’t introduced himself, but he looked like his name should be Tyler, so that was what John was calling him. “Based on the footage, you committed second degree murder, which generally gets a sentence between 19 and 250 years; that is, of course, provided you don’t have any serious offenses.”

“What’s my sentence if I’ve had a serious offense?”

  
“Well, then we’re looking at 30 years to a life sentence.” Because people just casually lived to 300 all the time, so the distinction between ‘250 years’ and 'life sentence’ was important.

  
“I see.”

  
A couple minutes after that, Tyler left, and John had nothing to do but stare, zoned out, at the wall again.

Finally Tyler and the policewoman came back in and explained that since he hadn’t had any serious offenses, and the prints didn’t exactly match up, and someone had pointed out that it _was_ a little odd that he’d stare into a camera after killing someone, they were going to let him go. They also gave him back his bag and let him charge his phone, which was great.

  
Once his phone was charged, John texted his girlfriend to tell her he’d missed his plane because he got framed for murder and he now had no way to get home. After the initial alarm over being framed for murder (and his realization that _hey, yeah; they_ shouldn’t _have done that_!), she suggested he see if Southwest had any flights. They did, and he booked one for the next day.

  
And that went better.

**Author's Note:**

> the 250 years vs a life sentence is, apparently, a real thing


End file.
